Tea party needs to stay true to cause

December 6, 2011

Freedom New Mexico

Black and conservative are notmutually exclusive. That’s the theme of the Rocky Mountain Black Tea Party, an organization that’s gaining momentum in Colorado.

Throughout our history, black Americans have needed no more than protection of liberty in order to succeed. If freedom is the theme of the tea party movement, it should be of little surprise to see black people join in droves.

“There are far more blacks who are truly conservative than anybody knows and certainly that the media will admit,” states the latest Rocky Mountain Black Tea Party newsletter, distributed on Monday and written by the organization’s founder, Derrick Wilburn of Colorado Springs, Colo. “Many, if not most conservative blacks, are reluctant to ‘come out of the closet’ for fear of the stigma that’s attacked. Thousands and thousands of us live in the political shadows; not supporting the liberal movement because we don’t agree with policy, and not supporting the conservative movement because of not wanting to be the lone dark face in the crowd and/or being ostracized in our own communities and families.”

One mustn’t turn to a conservative organization to find black people who are disappointed with President Barack Obama, a liberal Democrat and the country’s first black president.

Boyce Watkins, a liberal economist and founder of Your Black World coalition, expressed his disappointment in an essay he wrote in August.

Millions of black Americans, he explained, “once saw President Obama as the knight in shining armor. He was the man who made them believe that politics could be changed for the better. Instead, they found themselves faced with massive and persistent unemployment; and a racial wealth gap that hasn’t been seen in the last 40 years.”

Watkins, a scholar in residence at Syracuse University, argued that Republicans have offered black Americans no good alternative, but “it’s hard to argue that they would be much worse. A 30-year reversal of the racial wealth gap and 16.2 percent unemployment are tough feats to match.”

In fairness to Obama, the power of any president to make or break an economy is vastly overstated. The president heads one of three roughly equal branches of government and has little ability to control employment opportunities or earnings for any group. Only the actions of humanity determine whether economies fail or succeed, and governments either facilitate or impede constructive endeavors. The fact that black people are hurting, during the tenure of a president who almost certainly cares about them, is testament that presidents cannot easily drive economies.

Black Americans will work and prosper only if the economy thrives. That means we need politicians, in all branches of government, who will free the market from overregulation. We need politicians who understand that Obamacare — and oppressive environmental regulations on businesses — price employers out of creating new jobs.

No ethnic group has an obligation to support a political party. If Americans desire to thrive, they must elect only those politicians who promise to free them from excessive amounts of government intervention in their lives and in the operations of businesses that employ them. Freedom is the premium fuel of prosperity. If tea parties adhere to that principle, they will attract Americans from all backgrounds and political parties who want nothing more than life, liberty and opportunities to pursue happiness.